The Dance
by Paradoxal Reality
Summary: Trapped, injured and alone, a Night Fury is tormented by the call of the Dance.


The Dance calls out to me.

"Come away," it whispers, "come away, and join me!"

And I spread my wings, forgetting for a moment why I am here. The muscles ache, protesting yet another round of abuse even as my heart surges, longing to leap back up into the Dance that sings sweetly to me in the night.

"Come away," it calls, "come away, and into my embrace!"

And I do try. I leap as high as I can, frantically straining my wings to reach for the Dance's cue.

There! For a moment, the Dance touches me, lifts me, singing songs of life and hope and eternity. My heart sings back, full of such emotion that I feel it must burst! Love! Joy! Freedom! Song! Let me join you once more, let me rejoin the Dance!

And then, it was gone.

I fumble, midair, struggling to stay aloft and in the Dance's soaring, spinning, loving bonds. The sheer cliff face of the cove, full of hateful stone, distasteful dirt, and the twisted spirals of tree roots greets me roughly in the face. I fall, and hear myself bellow in distress that once more I have failed.

I tumble back to the mossy rocks and rugged weeds below, out of the gentle grip of the Dance. Everything aches now, I have been trying for hours to regain the skies, the Dance, and still I am here. Still in this wretched little cove. And why?

I know why.

I know why as surely as I know that the sky will begin to lighten soon, bringing the new day borne by Sol's chariot. That small one, he is the cause. That small, insignificant sliver of a viking human, he is the cause. I suspected that my captor had come to finish me off when I heard the approach of a two-legged adversary. I confirmed it when I caught a good whiff of his scent, which matched that which was all over the infernal device which had ripped me out of the Dance's sweet song without warning.

And then, he set me free, that little creature whom I could have swallowed nearly whole with little trouble released me.

Looking back on it, I should have eaten him. At first I thought it was the cramped pain from being lodged firmly in that contraption, stuck in an awkward, half-fledged position all night after crashing down to the ground that kept me from returning to the sky.

Now, countless hours and many painful lacerations later, I realize what's happened. The pain from the severed part of my tail throbs insistently, and I pause in my moping to lick at it. It will heal soon, but it will not matter. I cannot regain the skies, I cannot rejoin the Dance again.

"Come away," the Dance croons, whistling through the rocks and sighing through the treetops, "Come away and be free!"

I spit a plasma ball of rage at the stone walls that confine me. I cannot be free. I cannot leave this place, this natural containment of stone and dirt will be my grave. If that viking-splinter does not lead his kind back to find me, I will starve to death. There are fish in the calm water here, but in this shallow water, they can easily see me approach.

"Come away," the Dance cries, spiraling down the walls of the cove to tickle gently, oh so gently at my wings, "Come back on high and soar and feed!"

I close my eyes, imagining being lifted, darting and twirling through the air, diving down into the deep waters below to pounce upon unsuspecting fish that leaped and churned in a Dance of their own beneath the waves. My fortune has always been that my Dance moves through the air as well as the waves. The waters here are too shallow, though. And my Dance does not seem designed to move on the land.

The Dance hovers around me, pleading, cajoling, whispering, raging. The Dance is life, and it will leave me soon, broken and splintered on these rocks as I try again and again to regain the skies. Eventually, I will break myself apart here, for I am wild, a dragon, a fierce thing who knows no joy but in the great Dance that has called out to me forever. It is life, my life, and I cannot live without it, though I may destroy myself trying to regain it. I know that the Dance is lost to me, I can no longer touch the skies.

I know it, but it is not within my heart to accept it.

The Dance spins along the shallow water of my prison, distorting the image of the moon's reflection. "Come away," it teases, "come away back home."

I rise to my feet, ignoring the aches and pains biting at my body. The Dance is calling me, with something that is lodged deeply within my very being.

I cannot deny it.


End file.
